"What's amazing to me is, here we go again with Jay Cutler," Grossman said. "He came in and he was going to be the franchise quarterback and lead the Bears. I heard some people say they were going to the Super Bowl this year. There was a lot of Cutler-mania going on in the preseason and all that. And here we are, back in the situation where ... because the team is not really built around a passing game, he has struggled."

Cutler has thrown 17 interceptions in the Bears' first nine games, including five Thursday night in San Francisco.

"Obviously, the last 20-something quarterbacks that have played in Chicago have not all been complete failures as quarterbacks," Dan Grossman said. "They obviously played somewhere before Chicago in order to be on that team. And several of them played respectably well after leaving that team. To me, there's an inherent organizational problem with the quarterback position."

Grossman believes the root of the problem is the Bears' traditional reliance on the running game.

"I believe that the NFL is a passing league," he said. "It has been for the last 20 years. Chicago continues to use the phrase, at least Lovie Smith continues to use the phrase, 'We get off the bus running.' I think they need to abandon that concept."

- - -

Pace practices

Bears left tackle Orlando Pace, who left last Thursday night's game against the San Francisco 49ers because of a mild concussion, participated in the team's light practice Tuesday at Halas Hall.